


i'm gonna raise hell

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Canon, TAZ Candlenights Exchange 2018, also Area 51?, just some good good shenanigans in the plane of thought, might even be a stealth proposal fic in the later chapters shhhh, oh and lup and barold get married at the taco bell chapel thing on the strip, shit gets buckwild, shitty t-shirts too, they go to vegas, this one got away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: Taako is bored, so why not go on a double date with his boyfriend Death and also his darling sister and her husband? why not take that double date to see his friend Joaquin in the Plane of Thought?and maybe hear something about a place called Las Vegas??(title from "Raise Hell" by Brandi Carlile)





	1. Chapter 1

“Babe,” Taako whines, draping himself over the couch and Kravitz. “Babe, I’m  _ bored _ .”

“What happened to your boys’ weekend?” his boyfriend asks, turning the page in his magazine without even looking up.

“Magnus bailed,” Taako grumps. “Something about a dog emergency, and Merle is…. Merle.” he slumps down further over the couch, as boneless as one of their cats (excepting the one that’s all bones, at least), and slithers into a heap on Kravitz’s lap, firmly over his magazine.

Kravitz smiles and wiggles one hand free so he can card through Taako’s soft dark hair instead. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it, love.”

His boyfriend responds with one long groan, squirming around a little and flipping his legs over onto the couch entirely. He says something entirely muffled by Kravitz’s thigh.

“What?”

“I  _ said _ ,” Taako says, turning his head so that his hair slips away from his face. Kravitz smiles at the sight of the raven feather tattoo curving behind his ear. He has a matching mongoose behind his own ear. “Why don’t  _ we _ do something?”

“Aren’t your sister and Barry coming over?”

“We can do something  _ with _ them, I  _ guess _ .”

“Hmm, like what?”

Taako responds to this with another loud groan, and Kravitz gives up his magazine for lost and settles for running one hand through his boyfriend’s hair and the other over the fur of  Duchess Princess Stinkclaw Regina, Esquire, who settles on Taako’s back. Both of them are purring, something that Kravitz is infinitely charmed by.

This stalemate is broken by the buzzing of the emerald compact. Taako sits up in surprise, accidentally catapulting Duchess Princess Stinkclaw Regina, Esquire into the kitchen. He’s able to catch her with a Levitate as Kravitz is too busy crying with laughter over her surprised yowl, so it’s to slightly more than the usual chaos that Taako opens the compact.

“Hey Joaquin!” he says, elbowing a still-laughing Kravitz.

“Hi Taako,” Joaquin says. He’s at his kitchen table, holding the frying pan, early afternoon sunlight pouring through the window behind him.

“Hi!” comes Marcus’s distant yell.

“Marcus says hi.”

“Hi Marcus!”

“They say hi!”

“What’s up, Joaquin?” Taako asks, now shoving a pillow in Kravitz’s face.

“Marcus had a magic question.”

“Hell yeah I did,” Joaquin’s boyfriend says, leaning into view. “So--”

“Wait,” Taako says. “Wait wait wait. Hold that thought, Marcus.”

“Taako?” Kravitz asks, recognizing that gleam in his boyfriend’s eye. “What--”

“Hold that thought, Krav.” He shoves the compact into Kravitz’s hands and launches himself up, pulling out his stone of far speech.

Kravitz, bemused, turns back to Joaquin. “So, how’s the taco truck?”

“The rebuilt one? Great, we basically never have the tax dudes coming around anymore after I kinda helped save the world. Oh, here’s Marcus.”

“Hey Kravitz!” Marcus says, leaning casually against Joaquin’s shoulders and pressing a kiss against his cheek, grinning at Joaquin’s blush. He’s strikingly handsome, his normal stubble having been recently shaved off to highlight his strong chin and high cheekbones. He has a smattering of flour across his dark skin, probably from the pie recipe Taako sent them last week. “How’s work?”

“Oh, about the same, about the same. People trying to become liches have calmed down a little, which lightens our workload. I have this weekend off, actually.”

“Oh nice!”

“What is Taako planning?” Joaquin asks.

“Good question,” Kravitz says with a grin. He can hear Taako talking excitedly with someone over the stone. “From the sounds of it, he’s talking to Lup.”

“Oh no,” Marcus and Joaquin say at the same time.

“He’s done,” Kravitz says, craning his neck as Taako hangs up and struts back into the room, a devilish smile stretching over his face.

“Krav, babe, pack your bags.”

“For what?”

“We’re going on a weekend trip with my darling sister and darling Barold.”

“Oh?” Kravitz asks, his eyebrow raise mirrored in the compact from both Joaquin and Marcus. “To where?”

Taako grins. “To meet up with my taco boys in the Plane of Thought!”   
  



	2. Chapter 2

Getting to the Plane of Thought is much simpler than Kravitz anticipated.

Of course, he _is_ traveling with three of the most powerful people in the planar system, a fact which even he, powered by a goddess, has to admit, but still. You’d think that there would be a ritual or _something_ , not just a casual double spell by the twins and then poof, they’re standing in front of the South Beach Taco truck.

Joaquin is waiting for them in front of it, letting his shithead brother actually staff it for once. Marcus is pacing, gesturing wildly with both hands as he speaks in rapid-fire Spanish, eyes alight and excited. “¿Crees que yo les agrade?” he’s saying to Joaquin as they pop through into the Plane of Thought.

“Hi!” Joaquin says before he gets smushed in a twin sandwich.

“Joaquin!” Taako says delightedly. “Hell yeah, my man. It’s great to meet you in person and not through a frying pan!”

“I still got it,” Joaquin says, waving the frying pan. He grins at Lup. “You must be Lup?”

“That’s me, babe.”

“Hey,” Barry says, waving.

“And this,” Taako says, seizing Kravitz’s hand and dragging him forward. “Is my boyfriend, Death.”

“Taako--”

“Hey Kravitz.”

“Holy shit!” Marcus bursts out, drawing all their attention. “I mean, uh, sorry, I’m just-- hi! Wow it’s really amazing to meet you!”

“Querido,” Joaquin says, amused. “You’ve met them before.”

“But not in person!”

“It’s true,” Taako says grandly. “It’s me, Taako, ya know, from TV?”

All of them are actually drawing attention from everyone on the street, numerous phones flashing in their direction, people whispering excitedly behind their hands. The Story might not have included visuals, but it’s not hard to tell that Taako and Lup aren’t human, and the way they’re talking makes the connection clear.

“Yeah, so, listen,” Joaquin says. “I figured we’d get some tacos from Manuel doing his _fucking job for once_ and then like, chill at my house?”

Lup isn’t listening. “Barry, holy shit do you _see_ those sunglasses?” she demands, dragging on Barry’s arm. The sunglasses in question are huge and shaped not unlike Davenport’s curled mustache from cycle 87, and the person wearing them notices Lup’s excitement. She shyly walks towards them.

“Um, hi?”

“Babe, those are fucking _amazing_ , where did you get them?” Lup demands, slinging an arm around the girl’s shoulders.

“Oh!” the girl squeaks, face flushing scarlet. “Um, you can have them! Here!” she pushes the sunglasses into Lup’s hands and skips backwards, smiling shyly. “Um, thanks for like, saving all the worlds?”

“Oh sure,” Lup says casually, putting the sunglasses on. “Barry, how do I look?”

“Capn’port’s gonna steal those when we go home.”

“Bold of you to assume I would let him.”

“Bold of you to assume you could stop him, Lulu,” Taako snorts, perusing the menu at the taco truck. “Hey look, they named a taco after me!”

“Uh yeah, of course we did,” Joaquin snorts.

“Can you really do magic?” Marcus asks.

“No shit, babe,” Lup says, lighting her hands on fire.

“Holy shit!”

Kravitz grins and summons his scythe, relaxing a bit when it appears. He wasn’t certain if the Raven Queen’s power would extend between the planes like this. Marcus’s eyes, if possible, grow even wider.

“Holy SHIT!”

“We’re drawing a crowd,” Barry notes.

It’s true. The attention has turned into a huge group of excited people all crowding close to them, phones out. Taako turns to them with a grin but Kravitz tucks his arm through his boyfriend’s and looks to Joaquin. “Shall we?”

“We’ll get the tacos,” Barry says, before someone tugs nervously on his arm. “Oh, um? Yes?”

“You’re Barry Bluejeans, right?” the man asks, rather breathlessly. He’s heading a group of people who are all in blue jeans and lab coats, holding notebooks and staring at Barry as if he holds the secrets of the universe.

“Oh. Uh, yeah, that’s me?”

The group breaks out into a babble of questions, thankfully mostly related to interplanar physics and not necromancy, and Barry is drawn into their circle, pushing up his glasses, eyes lit up with the delight of scientific exchange (or fan worship. Kravitz isn’t sure which, but to be charitable, it’s the former. Kravitz _can_ be charitable at the moment because Barry hasn’t done more than 5th level necromancy in two whole days).

Taako and Lup, of course, are in their element, passing out autographs and impressing the crowd with prestidigitation and other cantrips. They’re signing more autographs than Kravitz can keep up with, and playing off each other like they always have: with panache.

This, unsurprisingly, leaves Kravitz, Joaquin, and a still starstruck Marcus with the task of gathering the tacos. Manuel tries to give his brother shit, as usual, but Kravitz ever so casually summons his scythe and the kid shuts up right quick, and he only feels a tiny bit guilty: after all, Joaquin had told them all about the whole shaving cream in the prom pants debacle.

This plane’s version of a militia has shown up by the time they have all the food, along with a plain white van with dark windows. Kravitz glances at Joaquin. “Will they be a problem?”

“Shit, maybe? They heard the Story and shit too, but this is still probably like, a public disturbance or something?”

“We could fly out.”

“You can do that?” Joaquin and Marcus ask together.

Kravitz tries hovering, just a little, to see if he still can in this plane. To Marcus’s delight, he absolutely can, which means that Barry and Lup can too.

“Dove,” he says, tapping Taako on the shoulder.

“Yeah babe?”

“The militia?”

“Oh shit, Lulu, it’s the cops.”

“They’ll never take us alive.”

“We’re not technically alive,” Barry points out.

“Exactly.”

“Think we can, uh, give them a bit of a show, babe?”

“Would it be too much to make a golem out of tacos.”

“I think that would be perfect.”

“When do we unlock that?” Lup demands.

“I hate to be the voice of reason here,” Joaquin says hastily. “But we uh, don’t have enough ingredients.”

“For a big golem, anyway,” Marcus agrees.

“How about flying instead?”

“We have that one,” Barry agrees.

“Shall we?” Kravitz asks, offering Taako his hand. Taako takes it and rolls his eyes, the tips of his ears turning pink, when Kravitz bends over it and kisses the back of Taako’s hand. This, of course, delights most of the crowd, cell phones clicking away.

Taako snorts, muttering “Sap,” as Kravitz scoops him up.

“Uh, we don’t--” Joaquin starts.

“No worries, kid,” Barry says, disentangling himself from his fellow labcoated nerds and putting a hand on Marcus’s arm. “This is all we need.”

Kravitz rises up effortlessly, his boyfriend in his arms, while Lup goes arm in arm with Joaquin. The crowd, of course, goes wild, everyone surging forward, heads turned upwards like they’re watching a sky show, which, in a sense, they are.

“Gotta help us out here, Joaquin,” Lup says cheerfully.

“Yeah, it’s just kinda hard, I’ve never done this from the air before.”

They make it eventually, swinging in through the window of Joaquin’s family’s house. Marcus has been talking Barry’s ear off the whole time, and Lup is updating Joaquin on Angus and the rest of them in between directions. Taako mostly waves and vogues at the crowd below as people notice them flying over, nearly dropping the food on several occasions.

“Gonna have the paparazzi here in no time,” Marcus says wryly.

“It’ll be fine,” Taako says, waving a hand and unwrapping the tacos.

“But--”

“Marcus,” Taako drawls, pulling out the vowels to several syllables longer than they were meant to be. “It’s fine.”

They dig into the tacos, swapping stories. Kravitz reenacts his accent from their latest bounty (a truly horrible fantasy Scottish accent, a la Merle’s short-lived and much-reviled Rockport Limited accent), while Marcus tells the tale of his students trying and failing to memorize a Shakespeare monologue. Taako and Lup launch into the story of when they tried to get Lup’s fifteen dollars back from Greg fucking Grimaldis.

“Shit,” Joaquin says, laughing as Lup finishes her rant about fucking _Terry_ , almost but not quite burning a hole in his kitchen table. “Sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place in Vegas.”

“What’s Vegas?” Barry asked.

“Hellhole,” Marcus says with a grin, pillowing his head on Joaquin's shoulder.

“What kinda hellhole?” Kravitz says curiously.

“Give us the goods, kiddos,” Taako says, spreading his hands on the table.

“It’s this city out in Nevada, which is like, a desert? So it’s really hot. Like, I’ve never been, but it’s just a bunch of casinos and gambling and shit? Like a _ton_ of crazy shit happens in Vegas.”

Kravitz sits straight up. “Gambling, you say?”

“Easy, bones,” Taako says. “It’s just a bunch of casinos?”

“And parties, at least on the strip,” Marcus adds with a shrug. “People get really drunk and make bad decisions.”

“You should write for their tourism department.”

“Thanks.”

“I just had a pretty fuckin baller idea,” Lup declares. Beside her Barry is already checking his prepared spells.

“Hit us!” Taako says.

“We go party in Vegas.”

Kravitz’s eyes light up. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“Already tweaking the transport spells to account for a new plane,” Barry says. All three of them look at Taako.

“Uh, _yeah_ , natch.”

“Well yeah, okay,” Joaquin says, face falling. “Yeah, have fun.”

“You’re coming, of course?” Lup says, puzzled. “You gotta show us around!”

“Wait, what--”

“I’m into it,” Marcus says.

“What?” Joaquin demands.

Marcus shrugs. “It’ll be a nice break from lesson plans.”

“You wanna go get wasted in Vegas?”

“I wanna go get wasted in Vegas.”

“Hell yeah!” Taako cheers. “You know that’s how we do!”

“Do we have like, money?” Joaquin asks.

“Joaquin,” Taako says, leaning across the table. “Joaquin. I’m _Taako_ ? You know, _from TV_ ? We don’t _need_ money.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time we get to vegas I promise  
> also featuring cameos from one of my dnd groups hell yeah


	3. Chapter 3

They do in fact need money.

Or so insists the professional behind the desk at the Venetian. All the rest were appropriately dazzled by three ( _ three!!! _ ) of the seven Birds landing dramatically in front of the sweeping columns, the shining lights outside  _ almost _ matching Lup and Taako’s outfits. Barry stayed in his signature blue jeans, of course, but Kravitz is done up with gold accents to his usual black, while Joaquin and Marcus are dressed in complementary tuxes, Joaquin in red lined with black with gold accents, and Marcus in gold lined with black and red accents.

Lup goes all out, much more so than for Grimaldis, her elegantly cut red and gold dress alight with conjured flames. She’s dripping with jewelry, just because she can, and so she can use the stones as spell components if she needs to, natch.

Taako is matching her, his out outfit of vibrant purples and blues looking between a dress and a suit and proclaiming “por que no los dos?” The whole thing is bedecked in the sort of glitter that made Kravitz take one look at it and resign himself to at least a year’s worth of finding it on everything they own, up to and including their cats.

Somehow, none of this impresses the very polite and also awestruck staff, or at least, the head manager. She raises an eyebrow at the scatter of diamonds that Taako spills across her desk. “Sir, do you have acceptable legal tender?”

“Uh, I’m  _ Taako _ ? Ya know,  _ from TV _ ?”

“So you’ve said, sir. But I--”

“Uh, Taako?” Joaquin interrupts. “Why don’t we, uh, go around to the casinos? They might take, uh, diamonds.”

“Yes,” Kravitz says immediately, latching onto Taako’s arm. “Yes, let’s do that.”

“If they let us in,” Barry says, pushing up his glasses. “Given what Luce wrote about cycle 84.”

“It’s fine, Barold,” Taako says, flapping his hand and leading them dramatically out of the hotel.

It is not fine.

The bouncers at the door do, in fact, recognize Barry, and politely but firmly ask him not to gamble in any of their establishments. The nervous bellhop behind them hastily dials number after number, presumably calling every casino in the city to warn them. Taako and Kravitz they allow in no problem.

Joaquin and Marcus peel off to go see a show that Marcus had googled, after Lup shoves gold into their hands with a wink and tells them to go have fun.

“Shit, I guess--” Taako starts, but Lup pokes him.

“Come on, Ko,” she says, pointing at Kravitz, who is staring into the casino with all but literal stars in his eyes. “Lots of stuff to do that isn’t gambling, me ‘n Bear will be fine.” She leans in closer, grinning. “Hustle them all out of their shoes.”

“Oh, natch,” Taako says, grinning right back.

They wave them off into the casino and then Lup goes to the center of the street, ignoring the cars, putting her hands on her hips and bisexuality into every woman watching. “Babe,” she declares. “This city is a testament to man’s hubris.”

Barry nods solemnly beside her. “You wanna get married by a drunk Elvis impersonator?”

Lup turns to him, tears forming in her eyes. “Barry, I have never loved you more.”

They walk towards something called the Taco Bell Chapel, passing a shitty stand with a bunch of badly printed t-shirts. Lup screeches to a halt, staring at them. “Barry holy fuck.”

“I know, right?” Barry says, holding up one that says ‘I Want To Believe’.

“Look at this one!” Lup holds up one with a huge green alien head with enormous black eyes.

Barry looks expectantly at the man selling them, who is clearly deciding between just giving it to them for free or charging them quadruple the actual price. Lup decides for him by pulling on the green alien shirt over her high fashion gown, wiggling her arms out with difficulty, the rubies snagging on the cheap fabric.

“We’ll take em,” Barry says, offering him a few gold pieces. The man’s eyes grow huge and he snatches the coins from Barry’s hands.

“Shit, man, take the whole stock!”

“Nah, we just need two more,” Lup says. “Holy shit, this one’s for Kravitz,” she says, holding up one with a rainbow skeleton smoking a blunt while riding a laser shooting dinosaur.

“Taako’s,” Barry says, finding one with a wild-haired man holding his hands out, wide-eyed and grinning, with the caption ALIENS.

“I can’t believe  _ we’re _ getting  _ them _ presents on  _ our _ wedding day.”

Barry shrugs. “If they knew they would try and upstage us.”

“Taako would.”

“So would boss man.”

“You know, Barold, you’re not wrong,” Lup says, going arm and arm with him again after he pulls on his ‘I Want To Believe’ shirt.

“Oh, there’s one,” Barry says conversationally, diverting briefly to a side road and returning with an extremely drunk Elvis impersonator, who shoots wavering finger guns at Lup with a “Thank you, thank you very much.”

“You can just grab em from the side of the road, huh?”

“He said he was certified. And he only wants a bottle of rum as payment.”

“Eh, we’re aliens,” Lup says with a shrug.

They arrive at the Taco Bell and Lup kicks open the door (having been talked out of using a  Fireball on the way there). It’s a fast food restaurant, familiar from dozens of planes, with the addition of a small area off to the side. There’s a long white carpet along with two dozen uncomfortable white chairs, all facing a large pair of lit up bells in silhouette, which look like they’re cut out of paper, or possibly take out boxes. There are a few people assembled there, including a bride and groom, but Lup offers them a double wedding, and when the groom adamantly refuses that, Barry offers them enough money to have their wedding  _ not _ at a Taco Bell. (They both happily accept that particular offer.)

The Elvis impersonator is somehow better at his impersonation the drunker he gets. He marries them (for the twenty-eighth time or twenty-ninth time, depending on if you count cycle 32’s fake marriage. Barry does, Lup doesn’t). Barry cries, of course, and Lup dries his tears with her alien t-shirt.

The Taco Bell employees, one a short, blushing girl with short blonde hair and bright blue eyes, the other a taller girl with pale, freckled skin and purple eyes, make them a makeshift banner using cup lids that they slip onto a string of twinkling white lights. The manager herself, a middle aged woman with dark brown hair and an amused smile, shrugs and scribbles out “Just Married” on the cup lids, muttering “Adult life is already so goddamn weird…” 

“So who’s doing the actual spell?” Lup asks as the Elvis impersonator starts snoring.

“The what?” the manager asks.

“Would love that AC bonus,” Barry agrees.

“Yeah Minna, give them their bonus,” the dark haired girl says, grinning.

“Shut up, Sil.”

“Miss Lup?” the blonde girl squeaks, looking up at Lup. “Can you really do magic?”

“All kinds, babe.” Lup grins down at her and fills her palm with fire. “See?”

“How do you have purple eyes?” Barry is asking the other employee.   


“Contacts,” she says with a shrug. “Shit, can you make it real?”

“Uh, I mean, temporarily?”

“Good enough!”

Barry does that, and the girl, Sil, appears to take out her eyes for a brief moment before turning to the other employee. “Arturia look!”

Leaving them all to it, Lup and Barry drape the “Just Married” cup lids over their shoulders and saunter out onto the strip again, ignoring a plain white van that drives slowly past them.

“Hey, Lup?” Barry asks.

“Yeah babe?”

“You wanna go see the fire dancers?”

“Marry me again?”

“For the thirtieth time?”

“Twenty-ninth!”   
  



	4. Chapter 4

To Taako’s disappointment, they don’t have any pool tables on the floor of the first casino they walk into. Kravitz doesn’t care, making a beeline for the poker tables and immediately affecting his shitty work accent, which lasts about as long as it takes for Taako to take all the shoes of the people at the roulette tables, so, approximately four and a half minutes.

“Hey bones,” Taako says, the shoes dancing in a floating line behind him as he drapes himself over Kravitz’s shoulders.

“And if you think I’d just-- oh, hi Taako!” Kravitz says, dropping his work accent mid-sentence. “Having fun?”

“Got shoes,” Taako says, jerking his thumb backwards at the levitating footwear and the incensed rich people behind him.

“Yes,” Kravitz says, raising his eyebrows only slightly, in contrast to the half dozen other people at the table who are openly staring. “A moment, love, I’m just about to win the pot.”

“The hell you are!” the man to their left says, slamming down his cards. Straight flush. He’s blocking his face, turned away from Taako, but something about him seems familiar.

“Well fuck,” Kravitz says, back in his work accent. “Double or nothing? I’ll even throw in my soul.”

“Your  _ what _ ?”

“Babe,” Taako says, craning his neck to look at his boyfriend’s cards. Taako doesn’t claim to know the Plane of Thoughts version of poker (if anyone  _ really _ understands how to play poker, in any plane), but he can figure that three 2s are probably not a good hand. “Come on.”

“No, Taako, it’s fine,” Kravitz says reassuringly, passing his cards back to the dealer.

“I fold,” the Asian woman at the table says, her elegant black hair tied back in a lovely bun.

She rolls her eyes at her companions, a young, brown-skinned woman with her hair in an elaborate braid, cheeks flushed as she tries to convince her friends to go in on the bet. She’s arm in arm with a huge, powerful-looking woman who would have given Magnus a run for his money, right down to the fond smile she has as she looks down at the smaller woman. The other two woman at the table are with them, also both rolling their eyes. The taller one with long auburn hair is counting up their meager chips, while the last, a slim woman with faraway eyes and clever fingers, seems to be debating whether or not to try and snatch one of the line of shoes floating behind Taako.

Taako sees her looking and narrows his eyes at her, twirling his spare wand (pulled out on account of them probably attempting to confiscate the Krebstar at the door). She grins and pointedly tucks her hands behind her back, while the others attempt to convince the woman with the braided hair to fold.

“One last hand,” she’s insisting. “C’mon, Gabs.”

“No, Helena,” the taller woman says patiently. “Unless you want that man’s… soul?”

“I would very much like his soul, actually.”

“Helena no.”

“ _ Helena yes _ .”

“Come on,” the Asian woman laughs as the taller woman scoops Helena up in her arms.

“Gable!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the taller woman, Gable apparently, says, clearly amused.

Helena doesn’t seem to be bothering with trying to wiggle out of her arms. Rather, she resettles herself more comfortably and grins at Taako and Kravitz. “Good game anyway.”

“Yeah, actually,” the auburn-haired woman says, tossing the chips onto Helena.

“Make it rain, Saraya.”

“Stop.”

“Johanna if you steal the shoes from the famous elf he’s gonna blast you,” Gable says. “Joan, can you--?”

“I wasn’t  _ actually _ going to,” Johanna protests as the Asian woman tugs her away from Taako’s floating conga line of disembodied footwear.

“You and I both know that isn’t true,” Joan says with a grin.

“To the bar!” Helena declares as the group walks away.

“Well,” Taako says, blinking a few times, watching them leave. “I wanna party with those fools.”

“After the game?” the man at the table says.

When Taako turns back to respond, he has to do a double take. The man has turned back towards them, rubbing a hand over his neatly cropped white and gray beard. He has similarly colored hair and a wide smile, peering at them through large, round glasses.

“ _ Tom Bodett??? _ ”

 

\--

 

“Can you say it?” Taako asks as they walk out.

“Ah, I’ve said it a lot, it can’t  _ still _ be fun to hear.”

“What?” Taako demands. “Of  _ course _ we want to hear it, right Krav?”

“Taako, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know!” Taako says.

“I don’t.”

“Yeah! He’s Tom Bodett, for fantasy Motel 6, and--” Taako pauses, looking at Tom Bodett expectantly.

Tom Bodett sighs, still smiling. “And we’ll leave the light on for you.”

“ _ Hell yeah! _ ”

“I still don’t understand,” Kravitz says.

“Hey Taako, what the fuck!”

It’s Lup and Barry, wearing truly hideous t-shirts over their clothes. Lup is staring at Tom Bodett, while Barry seems to be having a minor identity crisis, looking between Tom Bodett and himself and back again.

“Hachi machi,” Taako says, astonished. “Put Tom Bodett in blue jeans and we’ll never tell them apart.”

Barry opens his mouth and closes it a few times. “People always said I looked more like Tom Arnold… have you ever had a mullet?”

“Well, actually--”

“We got t-shirts for you and ghost rider,” Lup interrupts, pushing the ALIENS shirt into Taako’s hands and the one with the weed-smoking gay skeleton on the laser-shooting dinosaur into Kravitz’s. “None for the Barry clone though, sorry. Babe, did you accidentally leave a body in the Plane of Thought?”

“I don’t… think so?”

“Well, you could certainly enter into the contest,” Tom Bodett says, shaking off meeting his extra-planar doppleganger with surprising speed.

“What contest?”

“Tom Bodett was just telling us about it,” Taako fills in, as he tugs the shirt with the ALIENS guy over his head. “There’s a whole convention of Tom Bodett impersonators, apparently--”

“Explains Rockport,” Barry mutters.

“And he invited us to go party with him!”

“You must be Lup and Barry, from the Story,” Tom Bodett says, snapping his fingers.

“That’s us, babe.”

“Uh, yeah, hey.”

“So let’s all go!” Taako declares, throwing one arm around Tom Bodett and the other around a still somewhat disgruntled Kravitz.

“Yeah,” Kravitz mumbles, pulling on his new t-shirt with a minimum of nudges from Taako. “Love, where are your friends? The humans?”

“Joaquin and Marcus?” Lup supplies.

“Still at their show,” Taako says, waving one of the Plane of Thought devices that Kravitz has been seeing everywhere. “He snapped me a video.”

“He… what?”

“Snapchat, bones,” Taako says. “Look, there’s a skeleton filter.”

“A what?”

“A  _ filter _ , Krav, look.”

Kraviz rolls his eyes. “Mine is much better,” he says, turning into a real skeleton and badly startling Tom Bodett. “Oh, sorry, I can just… do that,” he says, flipping back.

“Us too,” Lup says with a grin as she shifts to her lich-reaper form. Behind them on the street, several drunken partiers stare, rub at their eyes, and turn and walk in the exact opposite direction.

“Goodness,” Tom Bodett says after a few shocked seconds. “You certainly can.”

“It’s a reaper thing,” Barry explains.

Tom Bodett opens his mouth to respond, somehow, but he’s interrupted by the squealing of tires and several people yelling “Go go go go go!”

Three white vans swing into a circle around the five of them. People in full SWAT uniform pour out, pointing guns and other random shit at them. Lup frowns and lights her hands on fire, only for them to hustle her into a van, still yelling. Taako, about to fire off a spell, has the same done to him, and then the vans squeal off again.

The whole thing takes maybe six seconds.

It leaves Kravitz, Barry, and Tom Bodett standing in the middle of the Strip, stunned.

“What the  _ fuck _ just happened?” Kravitz demands.

“Well shit,” Tom Bodett sighs. “Could be my nemesis, Tom Jones.”

Barry and Kravitz both stare at him. “ _ Whomst _ ?”

“Let’s go to the convention,” Tom Bodett says. “I can try to explain everything there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter also features cameos from another dnd group i'm in, hell yeah


	5. Chapter 5

“This is fuckin bullshit,” Taako complains. He slouches dramatically against the cold metal of the chair, thumping his hand against the bare metal table in the most irritating rhythm possible. Scientifically speaking. They tested it back in cycle 61.

“Will the subject please restrain himself from using vulgar language, and please,” the staticky voice gains a new note of annoyance. “Restrain himself from  _ tapping on the table like that _ ?”

“Noooooope,” Taako says, popping the p. “Where the fuck is my sister?”

“The subject will--”

“The name’s Taako?” Taako interrupts. “You know, from TV? And from the  _ planar-wide _ Story broadcast during the  _ apocalypse _ ?”

“Be that as it may--”

“Lup!” Taako hollers, as loudly as he can. Even without spells, which he’s not bothering to use just yet (even though they missed  _ three _ of his spare foci), Taako can be  _ loud _ . “Where are ya, Lulu!”

“Please, sir,” a voice says as a young-ish human pushes through the door, carrying a clipboard. He nervously pushes his glasses up his nose, watching Taako, who snorts at how this pipsqueak is like the worst possible mix of Angus and Barry, right down to the awkward blushing of the latter. He has a patch with a bolded  **51** on his left breast pocket.

“You can’t possibly be the person in charge,” Taako drawls, looking the kid up and down, raising an eyebrow as his blush deepens. “You’re just a kid.”

“I’m, uh, thirty-seven.”

“Like I said, a kid. Where’s my sister?”

“She’s uh, she’s being questioned in, uh, another room--”

“This is so boring,” Taako complains in mongoose.

“H-how are you making those sounds with your mouth?”

“Oh, you know,” Taako says, still in mongoose.

“But--”

“I said you know,” Lup says in mongoose, across the hall. She’s staring down her own bespectacled lab coat kid, wearing both much less comfortably than her own nerd. He also has a  **51** patch.

“Please ma’am, I don’t!”

“Ugh this is so boring,” Lup groans, still in mongoose. She rolls her eyes and switches back to Common, which this boy seems to understand best. “Where the fuck is my brother?”

“He’s being questioned separately--”

“About what?” Lup demands. “We haven’t done shit!” she cranes her head back, and Lup can be just as loud as her brother. “Taako!”

“Y-yes, ma’am, it’s just, you’re aliens? And the US government has some questions for you--”

“The what?”

“The US… the US government?”

“Sounds fake,” Lup says, letting one of her spare foci, an elegant amethyst wand from Lucretia that she occasionally uses as a hair pin, roll into her fingers. She wiggles it and the kid’s clipboard is covered in pudding. He shrieks and leaps away, dropping the clipboard and smacking right into Lup’s conjured Mage Hand. It flips him off.

“Sir, I need help!” the kid wails, banging on the door. He digs his hand into his pockets and shrieks again when he realizes that Lup filled his pockets with pudding with the same spell.

“Gotta hand it to my little bro,” she says casually, rolling up to her feet and sauntering towards the kid. “Pocket pudding never gets old.”

The kid’s lip trembles but he finds his pudding-covered ID card and swipes it in front of the scanner, darting through the door. He tries to slam it in Lup’s face but she catches it with a flame-covered hand, melting her handprint into the metal. Alarms start blaring as she steps out into the sterile white hallway, and across the hall, Taako looks up, ears flicking.

“There we go,” he says with a lazy grin. “Found her. Thanks, not-Barry.”

“Not… my name is Jerry--”

“Don’t care,” Taako says with a flick of one of his spare foci, this one a spatula, a gift from Angus one Candlenights. Evard’s Black Tentacles spring up and wrap the unfortunate Jerry in inky black tendrils. Unlike Kravitz, he seems absolutely not into it, instead starting up a low, steady, horrified wail.

Never say Taako doesn’t have a heart (at least, anymore). He rolls his eyes and swipes the kid’s key card from his lanyard and sets the spell to dissolve in another thirty seconds. He kicks open the door, cause why not use a little panache, and comes face to face with his sister, hands aflame and smiling.

“There you are,” Lup says, and he feels more than sees her spell sculpt so that she can hug without burning him.

“Hey, Lulu.”

“So,” she says, leaving their hands together and turning towards the sound of running feet. “They weren’t very nice.”

“Yeah, what’s with the 51 patches on their uniforms?”

“Don’t know, but you wanna wreck their shit?”

“Hell yeah I wanna wreck their shit! They were saying things about “tests” and you know cha’boy didn’t study.”

“Taako you beautiful gay disaster, of course you didn’t.”

“Stop right there!” a voice booms. There are a dozen people in puffy hazmat suits assembling at the end of the hallway, in front of two very impressive double doors. They’re pointing what Taako at least recognizes as tranquilizer guns. “Don’t move!”

“They take anything from you?” Lup asks.

“Nah, didn’t let em. You?”

“Nope.”

“So the odds of whatever’s in those working on elves is…?”

“Not in their favor, that’s for sure,” Lup says, smirking.

“Stop right there!” one of them says again, voice impressively only shaking a little.

Lup snorts and squeezes Taako’s hand, and they both intone “ **You cannot kill us in a way that matters** ,” as threateningly as they can.

Which, given their status as magical extra-planar alien elves who just broke out of government interrogation cells with ease, is very.

Lup smiles wider, teeth sharp, her flames swirling blue around her other palm. Her dress still trails along the ground, the conjured fire there sparking and growing, highlighting both the twins in flame.

“Rad,” Taako says. “You want a ride?”

Lup raises her eyebrows at him, but Taako is already casting Phantom Steed. This makes the hazmat-suited thugs fire their darts, which pass harmlessly through Garyl, who responds with “Yo, what the fuck?” in his slow voice. The darts burn up in Lup’s fire. Taako swings up on Garyl, Lup behind him, and they charge the people, who scatter in fear despite Garyl’s spectral qualities.

They burst through the swinging doors into a huge lab, full of lab coats and people in suits, the latter watching the former as they perform calculations, type numbers into complicated machines, and poke at strange creatures in giant test tubes. All this activity stops when Taako and Lup burst in and share a glance.

“Not a fan of this, Lulu.”

“No, Ko, me either.”

Lup stands up on the back of Garyl, her dark hair blowing back and her hands full of fire, as she generates a level nine Thunderwave. She spell sculpts like it’s her day job (which, sometimes, it is), weaving perfectly around all the people in the room but destroying all their experiments, including the glass surrounding the strange creatures.

This, naturally, unleashes chaos, everyone shrieking and running around and nursing minor electric burns.

“Spell sculpting?” Taako asks, raising an eyebrow.

“They  _ did _ kidnap us.”

Lup, standing, grins and lights her hands on fire again, dress blowing back and cheap t-shirt nearly immolating itself. Taako, still sitting, lazily twirls his spatula and winks at the running and screaming people. Lup is about to leap off the spectral binicorn and start setting more things on fire, when the outer wall explodes.   
  



	6. Chapter 6

“You’re the real Barry?” asks yet another one of the imitation Tom Bodetts.

“Yes,” Barry says, flipping through his spellbook while Kravitz adamantly pretends he doesn’t notice all the necromancy in it. His boss is pacing next to the real Tom Bodett’s table, spinning his scythe. All the Bodetts, real and copies, are watching him warily and keeping their distance.

“Who could have taken them?” Kravitz demands for the fifth time at least.

“We don’t know yet,” Barry says patiently as he lifts his left hand. His wedding ring is securely on his finger, as not even 38 deaths on various planes could change, and he spins it thoughtfully, activating the spell within the twisted red gold band. The web of red light comes alive, warm and comforting, like Lup’s fire. His wife is just fine, and judging by how active it is, having a lot of fun. “Besides, they’re fine.”

“Are they?”

“Well, Lup is, and she’s not going to let anything happen to Taako.”

“Yeah, you’re… you’re right, of course,” Kravitz sighs, flickering between skeleton and flesh man and back. “Doesn’t mean I have to  _ like _ it.”

“Well no, of course not,” the real Tom Bodett says.

“Mr. Bodett!” another imitation runs in, glasses askew. He’s waving a phone and panting. “We got em! We know who took them!”

Kravitz rears up, entirely skeletal, shadows gathering behind him, eyes of red fire. He towers over the poor fake Tom Bodett, scythe up. “ _ Where are they _ ?”

“Eep!” the man squeaks, shrinking away.

“Easy, boss man,” Barry says, ambling forward and putting a friendly hand on Kravitz’s bony elbow. He looks to the trembling man. “What did you find out?”

“These guys,” the imitation Bodett says, flipping through blurry photos. “We weren’t sure, but then Fred over there--”

Another fake Bodett waves.

“He identified them just fine. The vans, uh, they’re from Area 51.”

Kravitz rises up in the air. “ _ Where is this Area 51 _ ?”

He hovers menacingly in the air while Barry gets directions, carefully shooing frightened imitation Bodetts away from the fiery skeleton sparking with filaments of darkness. Turns out his reaper form causes disruption to electronics, so Barry has to take notes on a paper map from 1998 from the assorted imitation Bodetts.

“Wait,” the real Tom Bodett says, putting a hand on Barry’s shoulder as he waves Kravitz out of the building, the senior reaper sending out waves of crackling darkness in his rage. “Let some of us come with you.”

“What?” Barry asks, surprised. He pushes up his glasses, looking over the real Tom Bodett. “Not to be rude, bud, but--”

The real Tom Bodett hoists a gun out of nowhere. “Don’t worry. We’re prepared.”

“Where did you get that--”

“I know small arms!” a fake Tom Bodett calls, and then it’s a chorus.

“I can handle any traps we come across!”

“I have government papers!”

“I can be the driver!”

More and more voices raise up, offering their skills, with one last imitation Bodett calling “I know where we can get some real good coffee!”

“Well, we don’t all have the  _ exact _ skills, but still,” the real Tom Bodett says, smiling, the others arrayed behind him. “Let us help the saviors of the multiverse.”

“ _ Barold! _ ” Kravitz roars from the parking lot.

“You know,” Barry says with a grin, sticking out his hand. “This won’t be the first time I’ve fought back to back with a squad of Tom Bodetts.”

“Wait, what--”

“Let’s do it.”

It’s actually fortunate that they brought along the imitation Bodett who knew where to get the really good coffee, because the barista at the drive-through Starbucks helps them with the map, since Barry had it upside down.

Thus corrected, they peel off, breaking more than a few speed limits and also, strictly speaking, the laws of physics that govern the Plane of Thought. Kravitz, power-posing on the top of the van, keeps it from flying apart under the strain as Barry blows a few lower spell slots on getting them there. The real Tom Bodett puts on a blazing song called, he tells them, Ride of the Valkyries as they thunder across the desert.

They don’t actually have to use the one imitation Bodett’s government ID, as they blow through the checkpoint without stopping. Barry, with Kravitz’s permission, pulls power from him to shield the Bodetts, real and otherwise, as they head straight for the wall.

“It’s time!” the real Tom Bodett yells. “All together now!”

The Bodetts gather themselves and all cry together, as they crash through the wall:   
“ **WE’LL LEAVE THE LIGHT ON FOR YOU!”**


	7. Chapter 7

“There they are,” Lup says, with considerable satisfaction. “With a squad of Tom Bodetts, apparently.”

“Oh shit, again?”

“Yeah, wild, right? You wouldn’t think that would happen twice.”

“Lup!” Barry kicks out of the van as the Bodetts spill out. The real Tom Bodett, leading them, hefts an old-fashioned gun and lights the place up, carefully firing above the heads of the yelling scientists and government thugs.

But Kravitz is faster. He dives towards the twins in a swirl of blackness and feathers, narrowly stopping in time to avoid crashing into Garyl. “Taako!”

“Hi babe!” Taako says. He dissolves Garyl with an appreciative pat and jumps into Kravitz’s arms.

Kravitz is surprisingly warm as he clutches Taako against his chest, although the flesh that folds over his form again probably helps. “Are you alright?”

Taako answers that with a kiss, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend. Around them, the workers of Area 51 are rallying, calling out orders and assembling themselves in some sort of order. Lup and Barry are already working on adding to the buffs on the Bodetts while the real Tom Bodett (or “Tom Bodett Prime”, as Lup immediately takes to calling him) lays down suppressing fire.

“Don’t scare me like that, love,” Kravitz murmurs, pressing his forehead against Taako’s.

“Wasn’t trying to, bones,” Taako says, but softly. “You look good in that t-shirt that I’m definitely going to steal.”

“Who  _ is _ the man on yours?”

“Don’t know, super don’t care.”

“Watch out,” Kravitz says, tugging Taako down just as a tranquilizer dart flies through the space where his head just was.

“Thanks babe.”

And then the government thugs are on them all, the room full of chaos and Tom Bodetts yelling. The real Tom Bodett hollers “To me, to me!” and collects his brethren in one corner of the room, not far from the busted wall, while Lup and Barry proceed to destroy the rest of the “experiments”.

“Really, this is unethical on so many levels,” Barry says critically, blowing up a set of samples.

“They absolutely did not get consent for cells to be used like this,” Lup agrees, setting the remains on fire.

“I just wanted to kiss an alien!” a junior lab tech wails, running past them into the maze of halls.

“That’s my job,” Kravitz says, tripping him.

“On your six, bones,” Taako says, shooting a Fire Bolt into a cluster of SWAT team members.

“Thanks, babe,” Kravitz says, spinning and knocking away the scientist creeping up behind him with a syringe.

They’re separated after that by the flow of the fight, although Taako still wrecks a ring of security guards approaching Kravitz, a flash of sapphire materializing out of nowhere, while Kravitz lands a chunk of pink tourmaline onto a group of randomly brave scientists cornering Taako.

Kravitz, feeling his newly beating heart swell as he watches Taako shoot finger guns and laugh lazily as his foes flinch, makes the decision. He leaps into the air, swooping over the fight, and lands next to Taako.

“Hey again, Krav,” his boyfriend says.

“Hi, Taako. I, um, have a question for you.”

“Yeah? Shoot.” Taako punctuates that statement by firing off a casual Magic Missile into a security guard sneaking up on Lup.

“Well, it might not be the most opportune time, but,” Kravitz takes one knee, looking up at his boyfriend.

“Holy shit, Kravitz!”

“We’re in the middle of a firefight!” the real Tom Bodett yells.

“Ignore Tom Bodett Prime, hell yeah!” Lup screams, surrounding them with a ring of fire so they can have their moment.

“I had this whole speech,” Kravitz admits, looking up into the warm, shocked brown of Taako’s eyes, feeling his own begin to water. “But, uh, that’s kinda all out the window, I guess. It’s you, Taako. It’s always gonna be you. Will you marry me?”

“Kravitz, I…” Taako takes his hands away from his mouth, his glamour dropping. He grabs Kravitz and hauls him up, planting a huge kiss on his lips. The kiss goes on, both of them swaying back and forth, until even Lup hollers for them to get on with it already.

“Fuck off, Lulu, you and Barold took  _ forty-seven years _ !” Taako yells back, finally breaking the kiss. “Oh, bones...”

“So,” Kravitz jokes weakly. “Is that a yes?”

“Is that a--  _ OF COURSE IT’S A YES _ ! Yes, of course I’ll marry you!”

He throws his arms around Kravitz as Kravitz picks up his boyfriend -- no, his _fiancé_ \-- in his arms, spinning him around. Both of them are laughing. This temporarily ends the fight as foe and Boett alike stop to clap for them, many calling congratulations.

“I don’t have the ring with me,” Kravitz starts. “But--”

“We’ll worry about that when we get home,” Taako says, beaming. “Plane of Thought’s not so bad, huh babe?”

“I’d say so,” Kravitz says, kissing the back of Taako’s hand.

“Sap.”

“ _ Your _ sap.”

“Forever, now.”

“Alright,” Barry says. He’s wiping tears away from his eyes, the soft-hearted man, and he waves one of his old bone wands, probably from cycle 53. They did fancy carvings on those ones. “Bodetts, let’s go!”

“To the van!” the real Tom Bodett yells, and the Bodetts scatter, weaving through the surprised guards and few remaining scientists. They pile in as Barry pushes the damaged van back with a wave of his wand, and the three Birds plus Kravitz make a run for it, Lup covering them with a Wall of Fire.

They all make it in and the imitation Tom Bodett who’s driving peels away, burning rubber as they fly through the previously broken front gate. He steps on it as the Area 51 grunts scramble to their vehicles, only to find the garage doors melted shut by a nat 20 Delayed Fireblast cast by both the twins.

They laugh and cheer all the way back to Vegas.

 

\---

 

“What. The fuck?” Joaquin demands, taking them all in.

Marcus just stands next to him in shock, mouth wide.

All of them have their cheap meme t-shirts, now peppered with burn holes, rips, and smoke marks, still pulled over their Vegas finery. Barry has re-draped the “Just Married” rope of cup lids back over his and Lup’s shoulders, while Taako and Kravitz are even closer together than usual, hands entwined. They deposited the real Tom Bodett and all his imitators back at the convention, with many thanks and also significant amounts of gold, and waited outside the theater for Joaquin and Marcus.

All of them are grinning.

“Got kinda kidnapped a little bit, Joaquin,” Taako says with a shrug.

“ _ By who _ ?”

“Area 51 guys?” Barry says, raising his eyebrows as Joaquin’s eyes grow huge and Marcus bursts into mildly hysterical laughter.

“And you--”

“Fought our way out with the help of the Tom Bodetts.”

“Plus Tom Bodett Prime,” Lup adds.

“And now we came to pick you up to take you back home!”

“So, wait,” Joaquin says, tapping his fingers together, ignoring Marcus leaning on him and giggling helplessly. “You, three of the seven saviors of the multiverse, plus Taako’s boyfriend--”

“ Fiancé,” Taako corrects.

“What? When did-- no, nevermind.”

“Congratulations,” Marcus offers before he loses out to giggles again.

“Thank you.”

“Three of the saviors of the multiverse plus Taako’s fiancé got kidnapped by the alien government dudes and you… fought your way out?”

“Yeah? It wasn’t like it was hard, homie.”

“No,” Joaquin says, blinking too quickly. “Of course not.”

“Don’t worry,” Barry says reassuringly as he preps the transport spell. “They don’t know you two were involved.”

“You sure about that? Is this why my phone was  _ popping off _ in the middle of the last act?”

“Yeah, probably,” Taako drawls. “Oh, and Joaquin?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s do this again sometime. Cha’boy had a real good time at Vegas.”

“I dunno, Taako,” Joaquin sighs, a smile creeping across his face as Marcus takes his hand. “I’m not sure if Vegas can handle you again.”   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this was buckwild, thanks for coming along on the ride!
> 
> comments hell yeah, kudos hell yeah
> 
> thanks i love you bye!

**Author's Note:**

> another buckwild fic yall, buckle up. should be posting 2 chapters tonight! oh, also come check out my writing shit on tumblr @ everqueen12, where i'll also be posting this (idk if i've ever plugged my tumblr before lmao)
> 
> comments and kudos? hell yes i love them and you for reading!
> 
> thanks i love you bye


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